Apologies for the hiatus, spent the last few days in Chattanooga and Atlanta on a combined quizbowl/sightseeing long weekend. Not much to say on the tournament end, other than it appeared to go well and most folks I've talked to expressed that it was a good time (and these are folks who aren't afraid to say what's on their mind).

On the travel front, I did get to do something I'd never done before: fly first class. On the way to Atlanta (via Detroit in the backwards logic of more flights costing less money) we were offered a relatively low-priced upgrade on the Detroit to Atlanta leg. We figured what the heck, and bought in. It did make that part of the flight less irritating, though I think there were limits to what Northwest could do in putting a first class section in a DC-9 (I'm still a little stunned that anyone still uses DC-9s). I got to spend that part of the trip sitting next to a very pleasant woman who is some sort of regional player with Amway (and no, she didn't try to sell me anything).

Coming home, we were booked to go from Atlanta to Memphis to Boston, the first leg on Delta, the latter on Northwest. We started boarding a little late, everyone got into place, and then the announcement from the cockpit: thanks to three "discrepencies," we're going to be leaving a little late. Two of the three were fixed no problem; the third - a faulty harness for the pilot's seat - was proving more difficult.

Time passed. Our new intended departure time of 6 pm came and went. More time passed. We started to come hard upon 6:30, which even if we'd instantly went from gate to air meant that we'd miss our connecting flight. I asked a flight attendant about this, and she referred me to a gate agent.

The gate agent was very helpful, and got us on a later direct flight home. We wandered over to our new gate, and Sarah thought she'd ask the gate agent there about an upgrade. After hearing our story, he gave us one free of charge (my guess is if I'd been the one who'd gone up to ask, we'd have gotten nothing and liked it).

Unlike the DC-9, the Boeing 757 has a very nice first class cabin. I don't think I've ever been more comfortable on a flight anywhere. And now I have to go back to flying coach - what ever will I do?

The downside to all of this was that our bags wound up spending the night in Memphis - didn't have time to get them off the original plane, and there weren't any other flights that would get our bags to Boston last night. So they'll be coming today. Not too big of a deal, except that I had to shave this morning using soap and a Venus razor. While you'd think that'd end with spurting and suturing and such, it actually went very well. Not that I'm going to switch to that all the time.

As far as the sightseeing portion of things went, Sarah and I took in the CNN tour and the World of Coke (with a walk through Atlanta Underground) before heading out. More on that later.